FOR millennia the Tsushima current running north-eastward up the west coast of Japan has brought abundance to fishermen. More recently it has brought less welcome rubbish, as well as giant jellyfish grown monstrous on the effluence from the industrial revolutions taking place in China and South Korea. Now the current is giving up perhaps its grimmest cargo yet: rickety boats filled with corpses. Since October over a dozen vessels have been found drifting in Japanese waters. The latest, recovered on December 6th off the coast of Aomori prefecture in Japan’s north-east, contained four badly decomposed bodies. It brings the death toll from the ghost boats to 25.
Japan’s coastguard will not speculate on the boats’ origin, but everything—including their wooden build and primitive, flat-bottomed design, as well as cigarette packets found on board—points to reclusive North Korea. The bodies have been cremated, unclaimed and unnamed.
They were probably fishermen for squid, who were caught out in storms and who died of exposure or thirst. Fishermen in Fukui prefecture in north-central Japan say that a capsized vessel found about 100...Continue reading
from Asia http://ift.tt/1OTDO5r
EmoticonEmoticon